34. The Price of Everything

e price of everything

Rupert and Amanda were hosting a smal dinner party at their Belgravia town house to celebrate Rupert’s elevation to the peerage, and because it was Rupert and Amanda it was likely to be pretty posh.

Monica was in despair.

Every evening garment she owned was laid out on the bed in a huge pile. A great big glittering, shimmering, skinny-strapped, cheeky-hemmed, plunging-necklined, gure-hugging mountain of memories. Memories of carefree evenings, saucy, drunken nights, sheer tights, best, most expensive knickers and a smal ish size 12 gure.

‘None of them t,’ Monica wailed. ‘I am the walrus.’

‘Some of them t,’ Jimmy claimed. ‘at jacket ts. You’re just being paranoid.’

Jimmy studied his wife in the mirror while pretending to adjust his tie.

Certainly she was a bit rounder than when she had last worn some of those dresses. eir second child, Cressie, was only just a year old and Monica had not been vigorous about getting her gure back in that time. She was possibly the teeniest tad less rm about the curves than of old. Her tum did bulge a little. But she wasn’t a walrus. Not even a large seal.

Monica’s image of herself was just paranoid self-delusion. It was al those other women, Amanda and David’s Laura and bloody Madonna with those ridiculous arms. Women who seemed to get skinnier as they grew older.

Women who clearly spent every waking moment in the gym. Personal y, Jimmy didn’t go for the anorexic man-look in a woman. He would rather have a girl with a bit of a saggy tum and bingo wings than one with great big veins running up her forearms, and biceps like the thighs on a supermarket chicken.

‘Your problem,’ Jimmy said, ‘is negative self-image. You look in the mirror and you see a Teletubby.’

‘You think I look like a Teletubby!’ Monica was on him like a Rottweiler.

‘No, that’s not what I said at al .’

‘You think I’ve turned into Tinky Winky!’

‘No!’ Jimmy protested, struggling to nd a way of making his point more clearly without digging himself in any deeper. ‘I said that you are—’

‘I have had two bloody kids!’ Monica hissed through gritted teeth. ‘Two entire human beings grew in here,’ she said, slapping her stretch marks, ‘and if you don’t like what they’ve turned me into then you shouldn’t have knocked me up, you bastard!’

‘You haven’t turned into anything,’ Jimmy said rmly, refusing to rise to the bait. ‘You were gorgeous before and you’re gorgeous now.’

He meant it too, but Monica was only half mol i ed. ere was a slight atmosphere in the cab which did not dissipate until they arrived at Rupert and Amanda’s and had been given a drink.

‘Drinking my investments,’ Rupert said, as Jimmy accepted a glass of wine from the pretty catering girl who met him and Monica at the door. Amanda never cooked, ever. She arranged menus.

‘Which is actual y an equal chal enge,’ she always insisted, ‘if you take the trouble to do it properly.’

‘Investment, Rupert?’ Jimmy asked, beaming and taking a deep swig from his glass. He was stil basking in the warm afterglow of the surprise pre-prandial tumble he and Monica had shared on top of her pile of dresses. It was so easy to get out of the habit of sex, he thought, particularly with kids in the house. You just had to make a bit of an effort, that was al . It was certainly worth it.

‘Yes,’ Rupert replied. ‘I’ve moved into wine, so enjoy it, you bastards, because this stuff is the canine bol ocks. Absolute gilt-edged security. Every single bottle, if stored properly of course. Personal y I’d have kept it locked up.’

‘Can you believe it?’ Amanda said, sweeping down the stairs in a glimmering strapless gown which perfectly showed off the tight, knotted, perma-tanned little biceps which appeared to have been bolted on to her arms as extras. ‘He actual y thinks we should leave good wine in some cel ar near Bristol.’

‘Perfect storage facility,’ said Rupert. ‘Believe it or not, it’s an old government fal out shelter from the Cold War. Goes on for miles. Lots of people keep their wine there. Ours is next to the Lloyd Webbers’.’

‘Yes,’ Amanda said, ‘and Rupert wants to leave it there.’

‘It was bought as an investment, darling,’ Rupert insisted.

‘It’s wine,’ Amanda replied equal y rmly. ‘Wine is a gift from God and it should be bloody wel drunk.’

‘As should we be!’ David said, emerging from the reception room resplendent in his new electric-green Armani glasses. ‘We should al be bloody wel drunk because Rupert, our Rupert, the man who, to quote dear Oscar, knows the price of everything and the value of nothing, is a fucking lord of the realm!’

‘You clearly don’t understand the value of that wine you’re glugging away at like cheap plonk, you pretentious arse,’ Rupert said, smiling and re l ing David’s glass. ‘And yes, Amanda, wine is indeed a gift from God, which is why it’s so bloody valuable and, what’s more, getting more valuable every day. It is in fact extremely generous of us to share such a ne vintage with our old friends, as I’m sure they are al pathetical y and touchingly aware.’

is of course provoked a chorus of sarcastic exclamations.

‘e funny thing is,’ Rupert went on, ‘if I’d waited a year or two I’d be twice as generous because by that time the wine would have been worth twice as much. I nd that fact both exciting and curiously depressing.’

‘But of course it would have tasted pretty much the same,’ Henry said.

‘Cheers.’

‘What’s taste got to do with anything?’ Rupert asked. ‘We’re talking about value.’

‘e value of a wine is in its taste,’ Jane snapped.

‘And how pissed it gets you,’ Robbo added.

‘Honestly, Rupert,’ Jane went on, ‘don’t you realize how boring it is, the way you pretend nothing has any value except what you can sel it for?’

‘Please,’ Rupert insisted, scooping up a passing canapé and speaking through it as he munched, ‘can you tel a hundred-pound bottle of wine from a thousand-pound bottle?’

‘I don’t know. I mi—’

‘Of course you couldn’t. Not in a mil ion years. I’m the only person here who could, as a matter of fact. But then I might easily prefer the cheaper bottle, as might any of you. erefore taste has no quanti able value at al . It’s subjective. A builder’s mate’s estimate is as valid as yours or mine, i.e., worthless. Price is the only true measure of value. Because the only real, quanti able difference between a thousand-pound bottle and a hundred-pound bottle is nine hundred pounds. at’s it. With wine as with al things, I know what I like. But if I want to know what it’s worth I have to look at what it costs.’

‘Nice nibbles, Amanda,’ said Jimmy. ‘Marks and Sparks?’

‘How dare you!’ Amanda replied.

‘Wine is like modern art,’ Rupert pressed on, never one to pass up an opportunity to ruffle feathers. ‘Both are now al about investment potential.

eir aesthetic value is increasingly irrelevant. Particularly with modern art. At least with wine you can normal y nd something decent.’

Rupert had clearly expected to get a rise out of David and he wasn’t disappointed.

‘Ah ha,’ David smiled, attempting to look like an indulgent liberal amused by a reactionary philistine but struggling to maintain his pose, ‘are we to be treated to yet another rant about your one visit to Tate Modern which has enabled you to diss al post-nineteenth-century art ever since?’

‘I’m with Roop on that,’ Robbo said. ‘Come on, Dave. You’re among friends. Just admit it for once, privately. Modern art is al absolute bol ocks, isn’t it? Just one big pile of pretentious, pointless, self-indulgent wank. I mean real y, you have to admit that surely?’

‘I don’t think I can face this discussion again,’ David said. ‘I personal y nd beauty in the intel ectual and sensual chal enge of the abstract. You, Robbo, nd it in nice, gurative, story-tel ing pictures preferably featuring nude women oating winsomely in ponds.’

‘at’l do for me too,’ Jimmy said cheerful y.

‘David, the reason you don’t want to discuss it is because there’s nothing to discuss,’ Rupert said. ‘Whether it’s wank or not, which clearly it is, is a matter of personal opinion. My point was that the value of modern art is quanti ed by its price. at is self-evident. It has nothing to do with its aesthetic value . . .’

‘I know that’s what you said, Rupert,’ David said, stil trying to look easy and amused but struggling even harder to disguise his irritation, ‘and you are wrong. Beauty may be in the eye of the beholder but it is beauty nonetheless.

And the fact that a rich man is prepared to pay for it does not stop it being beautiful . . .’

‘A rich person, darling,’ Laura corrected him. ‘I think you’l nd women enjoy art too and gosh, do you know, some of them even buy it.’

‘Yes, of course. Absolutely,’ David said apologetical y.

‘And transgenders. Don’t forget them,’ Jimmy butted in teasingly. ‘Chicks with dicks and men with muffs go to gal eries too, you sexist, genderist,

trannyphobic bastard!’

‘Face facts, David,’ Rupert said. ‘A sheep pickled by Damien Hirst is worth mil ions, a rat marinated by an A-level art student is worth nothing. If Hirst had marinated the rat and the student had pickled the sheep the prices would be reversed. Modern art is about investment. It’s that simple. So much more wealth is being created these days that places need to be found to put it.

erefore an important nancial industry has been developed where the product of certain artists is agreed to be a gilt investment, just like gold ingots or government bonds. You cannot possibly believe that when Tracey whatsit exhibited her unmade bed there weren’t a thousand similar mouthy, bal sy-looking birds struggling away at art school producing similarly pointless and offputting mounds of old toss. Tracey got lucky, that’s al . It could have been any old lesbian . . .’

‘Actual y, Rupert, she’s not a lesbian,’ Laura began, ‘or at least I don’t think she—’

‘You are so offensive, Rupert, it’s actual y quite funny,’ Jane added, but through gritted teeth and without the glimmer of a smile.

‘We walked round the Tate together, David,’ Rupert said. ‘You insisted.

Now come on. Honestly. Who knew which darkened tent containing a looped video of a pigeon breathing or the top of a bald head would become the looped video de jour and hence be worth a thousand times more than al the other looped videos in al the other little darkened tents? e nancial market did that. Only the nancial market can determine which bits of pretentious modern-art bol ocks are of value and which aren’t. And once it has determined which, it has to maintain that value. Art is a commodity, like property or footbal players – and wine is catching up fast, so sip it slowly, you lot, because with every second that passes each sip is worth more than the last.’

‘Ignore him, everybody,’ Amanda said rmly. ‘Glug it. Swig it. Pour it into a plant pot. He’s being a pompous bore, that’s al , besides which we’ve got ve thousand bottles underneath Bristol so I think we can drink a few without worrying about the market value.’

‘I just wanted them to appreciate it, that’s al ,’ Rupert said, slightly huffily.

‘Oh I am, Rupert.’ Henry sniffed deeply over his glass and proclaimed with heavy sarcasm, ‘Such an elegant nose with a strong bouquet of . . . is it pounds?

Yes, I think I’m smel ing pounds . . . plus a certain euro-scented aftertaste with hints of yen at the nish.’

‘e problem with you lefty types always sneering at pro t,’ Rupert said, ‘is that you’ve got so much money yourselves you no longer appreciate the value of the bloody stuff.’

‘We haven’t got so much money,’ Henry pointed out (as he always did), ‘and it’s extremely difficult to appreciate the value of things, Rupert, when the value keeps appreciating. I mean at what point does one stop to appreciate it? Surely you’d always be thinking, hang on, if I wait a minute the value wil have appreciated and I can appreciate it even more.’

‘Wel , it’s delicious anyway,’ Lizzie said. ‘Now can we please get off the subject?’

‘Dinner’s ready,’ Amanda said, ‘so come on through. We’re starting with foie gras but I’m assured it’s humanely produced, and they’ve done poached pear and vegan stilton for Laura and Jane.’

‘Lovely,’ said the vegetarians.

‘Don’t tel us what it is, Amanda,’ Henry said. ‘Tel us what it cost.’

‘A fuck of a lot, Henry.’

‘Wel , that’s al right then.’

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